Sebastian Coe has no doubts that the London 2012 Olympics boasts the best athletes’ village.

The chairman of the organising committee has always insisted that the competitors would be at the heart of the Games in the UK.

And last week Coe knew his vision for the global showpiece had been realised after a meeting with a team official.

The person in question was from the Angolan women’s basketball team who had just spent their first night in the athletes’ village.

Coe said: “I had never met them before but they came up to me and hugged me and said, ‘For the first time we have got African food, proper African food.’ Those are things that matter to me. We will have created the best environment for athletes and I was really gratified to be on the Olympic Park last week talking to team officials and people whose judgment I really value saying this is the best Village they have been to.”

Those experiences have helped reinforce the feeling that the vision Coe so memorably described to the International Olympic Committee in Singapore seven years ago has become a reality.

He said: “I joked at the beginning of this process that I did feel a bit like a Spanish timeshare salesman saying, ‘Below that 50ft pile of rotting fridges is going to be the Olympic Stadium’ and ‘You see that filthy river there? That’s really going to have tiered banking and landscaped gardens and nice walkways’.

“But that’s what we are now seeing.

“The most important thing about the vision we created was not just that it caught the imagination on that day in Singapore, that vision was important because we have delivered pretty much the spec that we said we would deliver.”

Coe has enjoyed a remarkably smooth run since 2005 with the preparations, only in the final weeks have the Olympics run into a significant wall of bad publicity.

That was caused mainly by security firm G4S suffering a meltdown in terms of failing to provide the promised number of staff. The storm that blew up came as little surprise to Coe however.

He said: “I don’t want to sound war-weary but it is what happens. I have seen it as a competitor and I have seen it as a writer.

“Don’t forget I was working in Australia for a newspaper and Channel Seven for two years on and off before the Sydney Games.

“I’m not cavalier about public attitude but I also know this is simply where you get to.”

As the Games near Coe has been getting by on five hours sleep a night and rising at 4.30am every morning.

In recent weeks much of his time has been filled with taking part in public events, visits to the torch relay and goodwill missions to the London 2012 workers.

He added: “The space I am in now is making people feel good about what they have done, and so they should because they have done a fantastic job.

“So I spend my whole time walking around thanking people.

“Volunteers, the army, the police, caterers and contractors – and yes thanking G4S who are out there – 4000 of them, and whatever has been written they have not let the country down.

“They have done a superb job and I am talking specifically about the people who are out there in all weathers helping with our security effort.”